I have alluded to this illustrious woman in a previous post. Here I would like to devote complete space to her. I think I already have mentioned that the first time I saw her was when she picked me up hitch-hiking. I was still fourteen years old.
I shall leave a reasonable pause here for your blood pressure to return to normal, Gentle Reader.
The year was 1971. Everyone hitchhiked. Even fourteen year old kids. Was it dangerous? Maybe a bit. I got through it alive and met some fabulous and sometimes very bizarre individuals. I learned a lot about reading people on the fly and how to get myself out of delicate situations and in retrospect I am absolutely amazed that my mother upon knowing these things about her darling son didn't lock me in a room somewhere and lose the key. Hitchhiking was cool. It was fun. It was cheap. And what a way to learn about the world!
So, in February 1971, on the cusp of my fifteenth birthday, I was hitching a ride downtown and this old woman picks me up. She wasn't really old, just maybe forty-seven but to my fourteen year old eyes anyone over twenty was suspect. She spoke with a Dutch accent and handed me a rainbow coloured shiny piece of paper with psychedelic lettering and the words "God Is Love." Inside the tract was the full text of the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, the famous "Love Chapter." The nice Dutch lady gave me some encouraging words as I got out of her car. I was already a Christian having accepted the Lord thanks to a propitious encounter with some Jesus Freaks less than two months ago.
In the meantime the Jesus Freaks had arranged a weekly Bible study for young Christian converts who lived in my municipality of Richmond. We met for three weeks in the sanctuary of a United Church building. Then our leader (who himself was a ripe old nineteen) announced that we were changing quarters. To my pleasant surprise we were suddenly meeting in the home of the Dutch lady who'd given me a ride hitch-hiking.
As well as having three grown and nearly grown sons of her own, "Mom" was a foster mother always taking in unwanted children. There seemed to be no limit to her capacity for love. We, the teenaged Jesus freaks suddenly in her care, gladly accepted her adoption of us and for a while we throve together.
When her dog gave birth she invited me to hold one of the newborn puppies. I protested because I was afraid it would be unhygienic. She retorted that that was anti-love so reluctantly I conceded and let the new life form, smaller even than a hamster, rest gently in the palm of my hand.
Throughout summer we would gather together in her home two afternoons a week. It was easy for me to walk from summer school to her house, though it was a bit far, perhaps two or two and a half miles, but my fifteen year old legs were very strong and my need to feel loved unconditionally, even if it was a beautiful illusion, was nonetheless beautiful. And who in their right mind would resist the compelling attraction of the truly beautiful.
We eventually lost contact. Mom became involved in rather an ingrown group with cultish tendencies. In a way I knew her home was still open to me, and would always be open, but my situation as hers had also changed. I was in a new church, a refugee from a dangerous apocalyptic cult. I needed to forge new bonds. And I was leery of anything that resembled a cult.
I also found that a new space, or a new room had been carved out inside of me. A welcoming place, a home that greeted with love and warmth all visitors, that offered coffee and freshly baked pie and acomfy place to sit and music to listen to and the genuine conversation of someone who actually cares.
In a way I grew out of my need for my Dutch Mom, but also in some silent and miraculous process that my Dutch Mom had grown inside of me and already had begun in me a work of transformation towards love.
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